Most people looking for a home exercise piece of equipment find themselves wanting to get the most benefit they can for the least amount of money, and often run into sticker shock when they see the prices. This article will look at the Schwinn recumbent bike and discuss whether you can get the same results as a treadmill workout. This is all based on my experience with both of them back when I belonged to a gym.
My overall sense is that if you are a jogger and use the treadmill to jog it is probably harder to match the results with a bike. It can be done, but it would take a better athlete than me. So my comments here are based on using the treadmill for walking, just short of a jog. If you belong to a gym, it does not really matter, as you will get a complete workout as you progress through the weight machines. When it comes time for cardio, if all the treadmills are taken, you get on the recumbent bikes. If you do not like the news show playing by the recumbent bikes you use the treadmill. They both are designed to give a good cardio workout, with varying degrees of difficulty and resistance built in to their programming.
One thing to realize whether you use one of these machines at home or in a gym, you get out of the workout what you put into it. If you sit back on a recumbent bike and just pedal away, and do not go long enough or hard enough to get your heart rate up, then there will be minimal benefit. If you set the levels too low on a treadmill and do not work up a sweat, then you will not get much benefit there, either. Commitment and follow through to a program is the key.
Most often a cardio or aerobic workout is the main result you are looking to buy either a Schwinn recumbent bike or one of their treadmills to use at home. You will get practically the same results for either machine by setting one of the programs, calculating time/distance, set your target cardio range and push the machine and keep at it until you get there. You might need to look at the space they will take up or cost rather than comparing results.
The unintended results are another thing to compare. A Schwinn recumbent bike and others like them are built with an ergonomic design, which means it was built to distribute energy evenly and not fatigue any one area to get the most productive aerobic workout. The upright walking position taxes the legs, I got shin splints, the back, shoulders and arms. You have to really build up a tolerance level. For me, the reason I switched over to the recumbent bike was my back and knees and I was happy with the change. You have to be careful of your knees on the recumbent bike, but it is not the same pounding they get on a treadmill.
